Content Finder

Audience
Content Type
Grade Level
Topic
Watch Us Rise
Renée Watson, Ellen Hagan

Watch Us Rise

Genre:
Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade, YA

Teen best friends Irish- and Italian-American Chelsea and African-American Jasmine find and use their voices to confront stereotypes, biases, and societal wrongs in their community.

Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants

Age Level:
YA
Gruen creates a story full of enchanting circus lore, mystery, trains, romance, and danger with no holds barred.

Ways to Encourage ELL Students to Read

I am curious if you have any suggestions for helping low SES and ESoL students to read when they have no books at home, and their parents don’t have time or don’t value the importance of practicing reading?

First, you should introduce your students to the school library. I suggest that you arrange a time with the librarian when you can bring your entire class to tour the library. The librarian can show them the resources that are available to ALL the students and you can give them time to find their first book to borrow. What is especially useful is to work with the librarian to select books that are appropriate for students’ reading levels and on topics of high interest.

Ways to Make Sunshine
Renée Watson

Ways to Make Sunshine

Genre:
Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade

The Hart family of Portland, Oregon, faces many setbacks after Ryan’s father loses his job, but no matter what, Black fourth-grader Ryan tries to bring sunshine to her loved ones.

Leonard Marcus

Ways of Telling: Fourteen Interviews With the Masters of the Art of the Picture Book

“A picture book is a dialogue between two worlds: the world of images and the world of words,” says Marcus in this lively inside look at the creative work of 14 children’s book writers and illustrators. Maurice Sendak, Rosemary Wells, Robert McCloskey, Charlotte Zolotow, James Marshall are among those who are interviewed.
A Web of Air
Philip Reeve

A Web of Air

Genre:
Fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction / Dystopian
Age Level:
Middle Grade

Fever Crumb returns in the second (but stand-alone) prequel to the Mortal Engines series set in a distant, malfunctioning England.

Weedflower
Cynthia Kadohata

Weedflower

Genre:
Historical Fiction
Age Level:
Middle Grade

Sumiko and her family are shipped to a Japanese internment camp in one of the hottest places in California after the events of Pearl Harbor. She was raised in California on a flower farm and now instead of flowers, she must endure dust storms regularly. In her old life she was accustomed to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Now they find themselves on an Indian reservation and are as unwelcome there as anywhere. She finally finds a friend in one Mohave boy. There they do their best to rebuild their lives and create a community.

Jana Laiz

Weeping Under This Same Moon

Age Level:
YA
Based on a true story, Weeping Under This Same Moon alternates between the different perspectives of Hannah, an American teen who feels herself at odds with her family and the world, and Mei, a young artist of Chinese origin forced to flee ethnic and political persecution in Vietnam. Hannah, passionate about saving the whales and the environment, turns her energy to helping refugees after learning about the plight of the “Boat People.” Their stories come together as Hannah and Mei become friends and help each other heal and hope.